For women in Asia, the post-COVID picture is one of new challenges, and opportunities

Throughout the Asian region, women have withstood the worst of COVID-19’s economic and social consequences.

Economically, the nature of work remains gender-skewed, with women disproportionately represented in sectors negatively affected by the COVID-19 crisis – hospitality (food and accommodation) services and retail, especially. Women-led micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises are bearing the brunt of the economic downturn from COVID-19, compounded by more limited access to financing and capital.

Research from the non-profit organisation Women in Informal Employment: Globalising and Organising (WIEGO) showed “a grim global picture of workers reporting they were completely out of work, with zero earnings at the height of their cities’ lockdowns”.

In places such as Ahmedabad, India, almost 100% of certain sectors, including domestic workers, home-based workers, street vendors and waste pickers, have found themselves entirely out of work. In Bangkok, Thailand, massage workers were completely out of work as social distancing measures came into force. 

Read more: Conflict zones and COVID-19's impact on sexual and gender-based violence reporting

About 70% of health workers and first responders worldwide are women. These women are at the frontline of exposure to COVID-19 and its consequences. The number of patients has increased, and the risk of negative effects from each patient has also increased. Even discounting the risks of infection, the increased stress levels brought about by COVID-19 has increased incidents of violence in care settings.

These effects extend throughout the social services sector (food relief, shelters), where women also represent about 70% of frontline workers.

On the domestic (meaning unpaid) front, women have also endured the most of additional care responsibilities. Increases in demands for caretaking work is further widening gender gaps in the labour force as women opt to leave paid work to meet critical (but unpaid) caring responsibilities.

There’s a clear trend of heightened volume over domestic violence helplines throughout the region.

There’s a clear trend of heightened volume over domestic violence helplines throughout the region. Media from at least six countries have reported these increases: Singapore, Malaysia, India, Fiji, Samoa and Russia. Reported increases in call volumes range from 33% to double.

Similarly, numerous articles show an increase in the number of domestic violence cases shelters and women’s organisations are handling. Such reports have been collected from media outlets in seven countries: Indonesia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Australia, Tonga and China. One article indicated a tripling of cases being handled during lockdown.

The factors driving domestic violence

There are three main drivers for increased levels of violence against women:

1. Lockdown rules, school closures and reduced access to alternative carers for elderly relatives have all kept women at home, increasing their exposure to domestic perpetrators of violence.
   
   Meanwhile, women’s access to support services and personal support networks has been lost or reduced.
   
   In China, a new civil code includes a marriage law that compels a 30-day cooling-off period for divorces. Though couples with a history of domestic violence are excluded from the requirement, some are concerned the law traps women fleeing abusive relationships.
    
2. Unemployment, alcohol consumption and other triggers to violence for perpetrators have increased. Multiple reports indicate that many of the reported cases of domestic violence are perpetrated by first-time offenders, indicating that pandemic conditions may be driving partners to levels of aggression they’ve personally never before reached.
    
3. The incidence of digital violence also appears to have increased as a result of increased internet use during the pandemic. In Pakistan, calls to a helpline for digital harassment almost tripled as the pandemic worsened, and the majority of reports were made by women.

Similarly, in the Philippines, four times as many cases of online sex abuse against children were reported from March to May 2020, as compared to the corresponding timeframe in 2019.

Signs of hope

In Japan and South Korea, especially, where employees are often under pressure to work long hours in the office, there are signs that more flexible working has benefits for women.

Hybrid work models that split workdays between office and home appear likely to persist after the pandemic. By removing the deterrent of the daily commute, hybrid work is allowing women, particularly mothers, in Japan and South Korea to take on paid work.

New forms of communication and engagement are opening avenues for women to support each other and make their voices heard.

If flexible and hybrid work allows women to remain in or enter paid work, the trend may allow Japan to meet its latest (December 2020) five-year gender equality plan, and might help address the 32.5% gender wage gap in South Korea – the highest among advanced countries, and more than double the average for OECD nations.

Measures were being taken within Asia and the Pacific before 2020 to reduce and prevent violence against women, including a national law against sexual harassment in public spaces in the Philippines; a network of women’s protection centres in Afghanistan; and a campaign in New Delhi, India, to create “sexual harassment free zones”.

Such measures have largely been stalled by the fallout from 2020, setting back the cause of women’s rights, possibly by decades. At the same time, however, new forms of communication and engagement are opening avenues for women to support each other and make their voices heard. For example, women are using alternative (digital) forms of entertainment to enter spaces vacated by mainstream (Bollywood) providers – perhaps most powerfully in the field of comedy.

Women leaders have stood tall

Importantly, it’s a truth universally acknowledged that women have always been better at fixing “the mess”. It’s therefore not surprising that women leaders have proven most adept at handling the COVID-19 crisis.

A series of academic studies have examined the issue from a number of perspectives, and all conclude that women leaders throughout Asia have negotiated the policy and leadership challenges of the COVID-19 crisis more successfully than their comparable male counterparts.

The overall picture is one of new challenges, and opportunities, post-COVID.

Returning to pre-COVID trajectories of improvement in gender equity presents the challenge of developing strategies for a different world. New strategies and synergies – for example, between resilience-building for economic recovery, and women-friendly climate change policies – offer opportunities.